Archive for journalism
Why I (still) read the Daily Mail
Four years on, I’m still a Daily Mail reader (even if they think I’m a foreigner). Here’s an updated explanation. I once rang the Daily Mail to mildly complain about a story I had a connection with. The journalist I spoke to put me on hold while he conferred with a colleague. At least, he thought he [...]
Media left reeling in shock as its stories turn out to be true
Media Blog has the story of how three newspapers are all shocked that a story they had reported turned out to be right.
A year of Daily Express headlines in one graphic
Lovely bit of compilation and analysis done over on Bibliophylax’s blog, putting together all the front page main headlines from the Daily Express for 2011. In that list they are sorted by theme, which made me wonder which words crop up most often. And so this word cloud: UPDATE: And here is a similar list [...]
What Andrew Grice left out of his report for The Independent
Yesterday’s Indy carried a story by Andrew Grice about a “confidential” Lib Dem report from Annette Brooke MP attacking the government’s planning proposals. “Confidential” is an interesting (that’s polite speak) word to use. Because what is in the report? Well, it is actually a collection of views already expressed in public, in Parliament and recorded [...]
Oh look, bedrooms contain only blonde women
Clichéd, old-fashioned use of female blondes to advertise bedroom products? Not surprising. That it should be The Guardian perpetuating the sexist shopping clichés? Less impressive. Though given the paper’s vision of only women doing cleaning or its obsession with photos of Sienna Miller, not too surprising either.
Dear Alan Rusbridger: I’m a man, am I allowed to clean?
Dear Alan Rusbridger, I was going to buy a product from the Cleaning and Laundry products part of The Guardian’s online shop. But then I noticed that every identifiable person in photos in that section is a woman. So could you tell me, are men allowed to buy household cleaning and laundry products too? Thank [...]
Missing: the people the Leveson Inquiry won’t be talking to
“Follow the money”. It’s a cliché of investigative journalism for a very good reason. If you want to get to the heart of what is really going on, knowing who has paid what to whom frequently exposes the real action being hidden away behind warm words, evasive statements and muttered “no comments”. It is also [...]
Phone hacking: how the newspapers reported it today
How prominent is the coverage the newspapers are giving to the phone hacking inquiry? Here’s today’s coverage: Daily Mirror – p.1 Daily Star – p.1 Daily Telegraph – p.1 The Guardian – p.1 The i – p.1 The Independent – p.1 The Times – p.1 The Sun – p.6 Daily Express – p.7 (a Princess [...]
How to hide something from journalists: say it in Parliament
Today’s Guardian has a big page one splash on revelations that the Prince of Wales gets formally consulted (and given the chance to veto) various pieces of legislation. Well, I say revelations and the story is written that way – complete with references to correspondence seen by the Guardian and a freedom of information request. Except … take [...]
Secret Royal influence or journalists not reading Hansard?
I’m not an expert in this area, so there’s one thing that really puzzles me about the Guardian’s splash about the “secretive” process by which the Prince of Wales is asked to approve certain legislation: it doesn’t seem to me to be anything new. Obscure perhaps, but not new. Which is why I took a [...]
